Rapunzel Maxwell
by Maeko
Summary: When long-locked Duo is imprisoned in a tower, who will come to his rescue? And what to do once he's free? Pay the delivery boy, of course. Non yaoi. 2xH, 1xR, 5xS, animalian gundams and boys camping.
1. Once Upon a Time

Rapunzel Maxwell  
  
Once upon a time, there was a longhaired lad named Duo. Duo was orphaned very young, but fortunately, his kindly (though somewhat wacked) scientist uncle G took him in, along with his pet dragon, Deathscythe. They lived in a cozy cottage in the beautiful and peaceful kingdom of Cinq. They were very happy.  
  
However, one day, wicked forces from the unhappy land of OZ (pre-Dorothy and Toto) attacked and took over the peaceful land. G was taken away and locked up in prison! He told Duo to run away and find a safe place to hide, but Duo refused to leave his uncle's side.  
  
[G from prison: Whatever happened to "I may run and I may hide, but I never lie"? I said run, darn it, run!!! Stubborn kid never listened anyway. . .]  
  
Duo would have been thrown in the same prison as his uncle, but a particularly evil high ranking official, the witch Dorothy Catalonia, noticed him as he attempted to make a deal with his captors. Realizing his purity and goodness, the witch knew that if were to grow up free he would be a formidable foe. She did not trust the regular prison to keep him secured, so she took Duo and his dragon to her personal castle in the land of OZ. She chained Deathscythe to the stone wall and force-fed him icky herbs to quench his fire breath. After his fire had died, she attached a tray to his back and trained him to serve tea to her guests. (He was still a relatively small dragon). As for Duo, the witch locked him in a high tower with three-foot thick granite walls and only two small, barred windows- one overlooking the forest, and the other in the door, by which he was fed.  
  
The witch was not a very trusting person, so she never allowed any of her servants to even see Duo. She feared his good natured personality would rub off and cause them to want to free him. So, she fired most of her staff, keeping only a few to run errands.  
  
Duo quickly decided that he did not like being locked up one bit. After about half a second of confinement, he grabbed the bars on the door window and began to kick at the wooden panels and scream. The witch would have none of that and began to throw rocks at the bars, nearly hitting the young boy's nose.  
  
"Hey, if you wanted me to be quiet, you could have just said so. . ." he muttered.  
  
"I did, you brat! But you couldn't hear me over your screaming!"  
  
"Oh." He shrugged.  
  
On the second day of his imprisonment, Duo decided he had better find some entertainment. It might be a while before he figured out a way to escape.  
  
"Oh, darling, you know I love you, but there's my wife, and my ex-wives. . . and the memory of my first love who died tragically because of the hurricane/car wreck/mysterious incurable disease, and then there's all my children. . ."  
  
[THUD!!!]  
  
A loud noise disturbed the witch's viewing of her favorite soap opera. She ignored it.  
  
"So, you won't leave her?"  
  
"How can I? Everything is in her name. . . the cars, the house, the Spongebob gift set. . ."  
  
"I thought you said you loved me!"  
  
[THUD!!!]  
  
"What on Earth?" the witch exclaimed. The noise hadn't come from the furnace had it?  
  
"Grr. . . I shouldn't have fired the repairman," she muttered.  
  
"We'll be back to 'All My Undiagnosed Issues' in just a moment," a sultry voice from the TV uttered.  
  
[THUD!!!]  
  
The witch suddenly realized the sound was coming from the tower!  
  
"Duo!" she exclaimed, and sped up the stairs.  
  
"WHAT are you doing, you noisy child?"  
  
"Bouncing off the walls."  
  
"Well, I know that! But what are you doing that's causing such a racket?"  
  
"This," Duo said simply. He backed away from one of the walls, then ran towards it, up it, and flipped over, landing safely on his feet with a loud THUD.  
  
"You have too much energy. I am trying to watch my favorite show, and you're disturbing it! If you do that again, I will come back up here and torture you!"  
  
"I thought that's what you were doing by making me listen to that awful show. You know, I'm really too young to be hearing those things. Do you think you could turn the volume down a bit?"  
  
"NO!" the witch yelled and, regaining her composure, daintily descended the stairs- until she tripped on her long skirt and fell the rest of the way, sending Duo into hysterics that continued unpredictably on and off for the next week.  
  
Later that month, witch Dorothy had a small garden party at her castle on a patio far from the tower in which the imprisoned Duo burped the alphabet. While releasing some of her pent up anger, Dorothy hit the badminton birdie into the forest which grew alongside the tower but just far away enough so that the massive roots would not disturb the foundation. Her suitor of the moment ran off to retrieve it. Duo, after burping continuously, needed a bit of air, so he squished his face up as far as it would go between two bars of the outside window. When the man came to get the birdie, Duo was a bit excited. He hadn't seen another living soul (with the exception of his scary, blonde captor) in a month and it was really starting to get to him. He was about to shout a hello, when he had a better idea. He ran to a corner of the circular tower and picked up the broken handle of his hairbrush. After trying to juggle too many objects, he had finally managed to break one. His juggling would have been a success, had the rat not gotten it into his head to bite Duo.  
  
When the badminton playing man leaned over to pick up the birdie, Duo twisted and squeezed himself halfway between two bars that were slightly further apart than the others, took aim, and dropped.  
  
"Airmail!" Duo called.  
  
"Ow!" the man exclaimed. By the time he looked up, Duo had pulled himself enough away from the edge of the ledge that the man could not see him. However, in doing so, Duo had managed to become stuck in the bars.  
  
"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. . ."  
  
That evening, as Duo rubbed his sore ribs, a thunderous sound came from the stairway.  
  
"That you, tall and hairy?" Duo called.  
  
"Duo, where may I ask, did you get this?" Dorothy asked, sticking the brush handle just enough thru the bars for Duo to see.  
  
"It came from my brush," he answered.  
  
"I see. Well, next time you break something, please tell me, all right? I won't have you harming my guests! Especially the rich and powerful ones with lots of toys!"  
  
"Gotcha."  
  
Late that night, after Duo had been fed his corn and water, a whimpering moan came from the top of the tower.  
  
"Dor-uh-thy," Duo called and moaned some more. The witch made her way upstairs.  
  
"What is it?" she snapped.  
  
"I- broke something else."  
  
"Let me have it. I don't want you beaning any more of my friends at parties."  
  
"It's. . . ugh, not something I can. . . oof, give to you."  
  
"Well, for heaven's sake, what is it?" she barked.  
  
"My stomach."  
  
"Your stomach. How in the world did you manage to break your stomach?" she asked, her patience all but down the drain.  
  
"I broke it when I ate your food. . ." Duo said.  
  
"Why, you ungrateful little wretch!" she bellowed, barely audible over the sound of his laughter. "You're lucky I even feed you!"  
  
"Oh, ha ha, that brings me to a question I've been meaning to ask you, crazy lady. [snicker] Why do you feed me?" Dorothy folded her arms, and in the snottiest voice imaginable, said,  
  
"You'll find out later."  
  
"How much later?"  
  
"When you're older. Much older," she said condescendingly.  
  
"Well Dorothy, I didn't know you felt that way about me," Duo teased.  
  
"Ew- you little. . . pervert! That is not at all what I meant! You know that. Where little country boys get such ideas, I'll never know. You're all despicably dirty. . . and if this door weren't in the way, I'd give you a good beating!"  
  
"Ha, don't get me started on that one. And since we're talking like this, may I call you Dot?"  
  
"No. Where in the world do you get these low thoughts?" she asked rudely.  
  
"Hey, it ain't my fault, lady. I'm not being raised properly. With all those for-adults-only shows you've got on all afternoon, whaddaya expect?"  
  
"Raised properly? If I cared enough, I could raise you ten times better than that old coot you lived with."  
  
"Don't say anything about my uncle!" Duo yelled.  
  
"Your uncle was a crazy old man who was locked up for everybody's good, including his own."  
  
"That's not true!" Duo screamed as he banged his fists against the wooden door. "He's a better person than you'll ever be, you witch! What do you know about people, anyway? About integrity or kindness or love? You're not even human!"  
  
"Shut up, brat!"  
  
"You're a nasty, ugly witch, and you're only going to get uglier and then no man will ever come play badminton with you unless he's blind!"  
  
"I said, shut up!" Dorothy commanded, reaching thru the bars and taking a firm hold on his bangs and lifting him off the ground.  
  
"OW!" Duo howled and twisted her wrist uncomfortably, causing her to loosen her grip and him to fall flat on his rear.  
  
"Stupid brat," Dorothy muttered, massaging her bony wrist. "You'll be lucky if you eat again this month!" Duo continued banging on the door long after she had left. He finally gave up and sat with his back against the door, biting his lower lip until it bled. 


	2. The Prince on the Dragon

Chapter 2  
  
Eight years had passed and Duo was now fifteen. Having been locked in a tower and not allowed haircuts, his hair had grown quite long. To keep it out of his way, Duo had looped his braid and fastened it with his black elastic.  
  
[Duo: [sigh] This is so not manly. . .]  
  
Since his hair was quite long, it was very difficult to wash. The tower bathroom only had a toilet and sink. He sponge-bathed a few times a week, but his hair. . . that was another matter entirely. He had to make a deal with Dorothy when the stench got so bad that poor Deathscythe couldn't keep anything down, much less those nasty herbs. She would make him a cake, and Duo would wash his hair. He timed it so that the cake deal was made sometime around his birthday.  
  
Duo and Dorothy's relationship was strained, to say the least. He teased her, she insulted him. . . and that was about the extent to which their conversations went. Duo was dying for a someone else to talk to. Anyone. Suddenly he heard a noise from outside- a kind of squeaking. Was it another rat? The last one had left years ago when it finally realized it was going to receive nothing to eat but old corn. Its escape had been rather amusing- Duo threw it out the door window and it landed on Dorothy's dress's neckline. . .  
  
When Duo looked out the window, he saw something black on the ground- it was a bird! He was a little surprised to see it. For as long as he had been in the tower, witch Dorothy's evil magic had kept all the friendly wildlife away.  
  
"Ha!" Duo exclaimed, as he went to his paper plate and pinched a few of the last kernels of corn he just hadn't been able to force down. Then, he sprinkled a few of them down near the bird, who ate them hungrily. Once the crow realized where the snacks were coming from, it flew to the ledge. As it was about to take a bite, it stopped, wrinkled its beak a bit in disgust at the tower's stench and flew away.  
  
"I never knew a bird could wrinkle its beak," Duo said to hide his hurt.  
  
"I don't guess I'll ever get that chance again. I could have fastened a note to his leg to ask for help! Ah well, such is life."  
  
Then, he heard a noise again. Could it be the bird had come back? When Duo looked to the ground, he saw a more purplish gray bird, which he lured to the ledge in the same way.  
  
'Please, please, just hold your breath,' he asked silently. The bird -a pigeon- did not notice any smell. It was from New York City. It dug right in and ate all the corn.  
  
"Well, bird!" Duo began. "Whaddaya say you me be friends?" As the bird appeared to have no objections, Duo spent the next few months training it to be a carrier pigeon, which was rather difficult as he had no one else to send it to.  
  
Finally, the day came when Duo could do no more to train the pigeon- he would simply have to let if fly and see if it returned. He took out the piece of paper he had left in his pocket from all those years ago before he was captured, and the pen he had coerced Dorothy into giving him and then used against her.  
  
***FLASHBACK***  
  
[clicky, clicky, clicky]  
  
"Does this annoy you, Dor?"  
  
[clicky, clicky, clicky]  
  
"Duo, just take the food! I have a life to live."  
  
"No you don't."  
  
"Rapunzel!!!" She screamed the nickname she had given Duo, which meant "God of Death" in OZian.  
  
"I swear, you are going to be the death of me. . ."  
  
"Will I get written credit?"  
  
***END FLASHBACK***  
  
Duo wrote his message as best he could. G had taught him to read and write, but Duo had not had the chance to fully master spelling.  
  
"HELP," he spoke as he wrote. "I am trapped in a tower by Witch Dort, no, Dourt, that ain't it, either, Dorth, er, Dot. . ."  
  
After completing the message and signing it "Rapunzel," Duo tied it to the bird's left leg. He then tied two Cinq dollars he had kept buried in his pocket to the bird's right leg.  
  
"Now, don't loose that money!" Duo instructed the bird. "Or the note, for that matter! It's reeeally important, K?"  
  
The bird cooed.  
  
"That's a good bird, Heero! Now fly! Be free! Swim with the fishies! No wait, that's not a good one. . ."  
  
Duo watched, his chin cradled in his hand, as the bird flew off over the thick blanket of hemlocks.  
  
***  
  
Things went back to normal around the tower as Duo waited for help. He played games (like see-how-far-you-can-push-Dorothy-until-she-looses-her- fake-composure) and thought a lot about the meaning of life to entertain himself; Dorothy brought him food, the consistency of which depended on her mood (the squishier, the worse the mood); they argued and yelled and screamed. . . Life was very boring with no friends and no pigeon.  
  
"I'm going frickin' crazy holed up in this. . . hole! I hope someone gets that note," Duo mumbled to himself as he fell asleep to the sounds of Deathscythe's moaning.  
  
Two days after sending the pigeon off, Duo was startled to hear a pebble bounce in thru the outside window.  
  
"It's here! Help has arrived!" Duo said, trying to keep his voice to a whisper. He then remembered that Dorothy was spending the week in town, and decided to let loose.  
  
"YAHOOOOOOOOO!" he cheered as he bounded towards the window. Suffering somewhat from malnutrition, Duo was still able to squeeze himself between the bars. When he looked down, he saw a handsome young man with windswept, chocolate locks sitting atop a full grown dragon.  
  
"Steady now, Zero," the boy said soothingly to the beast, who ceased his snorting. It wouldn't do for him to catch the forest on fire. The boy would loose his job, and then where would he be?  
  
"I'm so glad you've come!" Duo called.  
  
"I imagined you would be," the boy called back up. The two stared at each other for a moment.  
  
"So, how am I supposed to get up there?" the boy asked. "My dragon isn't tall enough to reach that high, and there's no way I could get close enough if he flew."  
  
"Hmm. . ." Duo hmmed. "I forgot to write 'bring a ladder.' I suppose we could get to know each other while we try to think of something."  
  
"Why?" the other boy asked.  
  
"Geez, you're friendly! It's been two days since I've had a friend, and eight years since one of my friends has been human!"  
  
The boy decided not to ask what that meant.  
  
"Rats and pigeons are not great at conversing," Duo continued.  
  
"I'd guess not."  
  
There was a lull in the conversation, and the new arrival was feeling a little uncomfortable being stared at by the wide-eyed, long-haired boy that sat up on the window ledge, apparently unaware of the dangerous height.  
  
He awkwardly asked,  
  
"So, what's your name?"  
  
"Well, it's Duo, but around these parts, I'm known as Rapunzel!" he announced with a little bit of pride.  
  
"Rapunzel?" the boy asked. "That must be OZian. . ."  
  
"Sure is! It means 'God of Death'!"  
  
The boy acknowledged this piece of information with a barely audible  
  
"Hn."  
  
"So, what about you?" Duo asked.  
  
"What about me?"  
  
"Uh. . . you have a name, don't you?"  
  
"Oh. It's Odin."  
  
"Wow, I'm sorry. That's a really sucky name."  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"In OZian, Odin means smelly feet," Duo explained. "Well, that and genetically altered lost little boy, but."  
  
Odin was giving Duo a strange look.  
  
"Uh, nevermind. That probably doesn't apply, anyway. So, Odin," Duo began, but could not keep himself from cracking up. Odin waited patiently for the fit to pass.  
  
"I can't call you that. It isn't going to work. Howzabout I call you. . . ah! Heero!"  
  
Why 'Heero'?" Odin asked.  
  
"Heero was the name of my homing pigeon- the one that sent the order and dough. He helped rescue me, just like you. So, you can be his namesake!"  
  
"I've just been named after a pigeon," Odin mumbled.  
  
"So, Heero," Duo began.  
  
"I didn't accept your name," Odin called up the tower.  
  
Duo looked a little hurt.  
  
"Yeah, well. . . it's a good name, and Heero was a really good pigeon. Say, what happened to Heero?"  
  
"Beats me. I just do my job."  
  
"Oh. . . that's comforting. You could at least have made up a nice lie for me, like, he went to live in Central Park, or something."  
  
Odin sighed.  
  
"I think he went to live in Central Park."  
  
Duo's eyes lit up.  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
"Aw, that's good to hear. So, can I call you Heero?" Odin decided their conversation would be more effective if he gave in. There was no way he'd complete this mission if that. . . Rapunzel person couldn't stop laughing.  
  
"Okay."  
  
"Great! So, you got any ideas?"  
  
The boy shook his head.  
  
"Ah, me neither."  
  
After a moment of silence spent deep in thought, a rather obvious idea came to Odin, er, Heero.  
  
"Hey, Rapunzel?"  
  
"Hey, what?"  
  
"Why don't you let down that long hair of yours? If I stand on Wing Zero's head, I can probably reach it and pull myself up to you."  
  
Duo winced at the thought.  
  
"Nah. It'd hurt way too much. Let's try to think of something else."  
  
But, try as they might, they could not come up with another option. So, Duo carefully pulled out his black elastic and shook his braid loose. He rebraided the end and fastened it up tightly. Then, he coiled it up and just as he was about to let it down, Heero called from atop Wing Zero's scaly head,  
  
"How am I going to pull myself up with out hurting you?"  
  
"I don't think you can, but I'd like to avoid as much pain as possible. I was thinking I'd brace myself against the bars; you know, lie sideways so I won't fall out."  
  
Heero considered the statistical possibilities of every outcome for a brief moment.  
  
"Hope it works."  
  
Duo then gingerly let his braid down to where Heero could reach it.  
  
"Hey, Rapunzel? I've got plenty of slack here. Why don't you knot it around one of the bars?"  
  
"Ha! Great idea, Heero buddy. Gimme it back!" So, Heero released the thick braid, and Duo pulled it all the way back up and followed Heero's advice.  
  
Once the dangling plait was again within his reach, Heero took a firm hold on the slightly ratty braid and began to climb up the tower.  
  
"Oh man. . ." Duo moaned. "I can definitely feel that. Be careful down there!"  
  
"Did you think I wouldn't be?" Heero asked. Duo would have shrugged, but it was difficult for him to move.  
  
When Heero finally reached the top after a long and arduous struggle, he gently unknotted Duo's braid. Duo fell in a heap on the floor and twitched a little.  
  
He soon recovered, and hopped onto the ledge to envelop Heero in a bear hug.  
  
"YOU DID IT, YOU DID IT!!!"  
  
"Whew," Heero said. "This place smells. You smell."  
  
"Well, it's not as if I can help it. I've been a prisoner here for eight very long years! I'd think you could sympathize," he said pathetically, turning his nose up in indignation.  
  
"You couldn't have bathed during that time?"  
  
"I did!"  
  
"Not well."  
  
"Do you see a shower? Or a bathtub? Or any means of effectively cleansing all of this?" Duo said, indicating his aching braid. Heero shook his head. Duo grinned.  
  
"Good. 'Cuz then, you'd be hallucinating!" Heero had occasionally wondered what the psychological effects of imprisonment were. Now he knew.  
  
"I don't think I can fit between these bars," Heero said.  
  
"That's okay. You ain't missing much in here."  
  
"Why don't you just take this and let me back down the same way," Heero suggested, handing a black and green backpack with the embroidered letters F-E-D-E-X on it to Duo, who plopped down on the stone floor and eagerly rooted thru it. He pulled out a small, brown paper package, which he quickly ripped into.  
  
"Aah, my lock picks! I'm glad the money was enough."  
  
"Actually, you still owe eighty Cinq dollars and fifty Cinq cents, plus four-fifty for shipping. And, er. . . a little extra for a tip, if you can."  
  
"I'm glad I don't speak French," Duo muttered. "Then I might be really confused."  
  
Duo continued to pull out his purchases- two dowel rods and a roll of duct tape.  
  
"Yup, this oughta do it." Heero watched as Duo secured the two thin pieces of metal to the ends of the wooden rods.  
  
"Blah, blah," Duo mumbled, flipping needlessly through a small instructional pamphlet from the lock pick box. He then tossed it aside, stuck his new contraptions thru the door window and found the lock with the L-shaped pick.  
  
"Now, just a little pressure. . . not too much," he said for Heero's benefit.  
  
"And this one goes in there, too," he said, running the rough-edged pick along in the top inside of the lock. He pulled it back and forth until the resistance against the L-shaped pick disappeared and it turned.  
  
"Ha Ha!" Duo exclaimed. "Free at last! Free at last! Yesss!"  
  
Heero could not help but smile at the other boy's joy.  
  
Duo pulled the door open and gaped at the spiraling stone stairway. "I can just walk out," he marveled. "Well, I can once I let you back down, that is!"  
  
Duo refastened himself to the bar and just as Heero was about to climb down, he asked  
  
"About the money. . ."  
  
"Yeah, I'll get it from downstairs and meet you out back." Heero nodded his approval, either forgetting or not caring that Duo did not have eyes in the back of his head.  
  
***  
  
Heero gazed up into the large, sad eyes before him. The dragon whimpered, asking to be set free. He understood what it felt like to be chained to one place- well, metaphorically speaking. His life was a dead-end street. He hated his job and his job was his life. If only he could take Wing Zero and leave- just fly away, soar aimlessly, with no one to restrict him. He would be completely free.  
  
Well, not completely, he admitted to himself. He would have to find work elsewhere, but anything would be better if it were in a land not ruled by OZ. If such a place existed. Of course, with things going the way they were, there was no way he'd ever save up enough money to escape the rat race.  
  
He reached up and petted the side of the dragon's nose.  
  
"You'll be free soon," he assured the shiny beast. 'Unlike me. . .'  
  
-cough-  
  
Heero turned towards the sound. It had come from Duo, who was standing with one foot on top of the other and one hand scratching the back of his head.  
  
"You shouldn't scratch."  
  
"Huh? Oh. . . Right. Heh heh. Didn't even realize. . . But, uh, why?"  
  
"It makes it worse."  
  
"It makes what worse?"  
  
Heero blinked.  
  
"Whatever it is you're scratching."  
  
Duo cocked his head to the side for a moment before he felt the blood rushing to his face.  
  
"I do NOT have dandruff!" he barked.  
  
Heero wished he hadn't said anything. Speaking always seemed to get him in trouble. And it wasn't as if he really cared about the condition of the strange, previously imprisoned boy's scalp.  
  
Time to change the subject.  
  
"Do you have the money?"  
  
Duo unconsciously began rubbing the back of his head.  
  
"Y'know, it's funny you should mention that, because I just got back from raiding Princess Nasty's safe, and it seems that the witch, er. . . tookallhermoneywithher," he said in a quiet rush.  
  
Heero blinked twice.  
  
"Yeah, it's kinda funny, right? I mean, she's got cash practically fallin' outta her ears." Duo began to laugh uneasily and realizing that he was once again scratching his head, jerked his hand away.  
  
"I can't go back without a payment."  
  
"What?" In his nervous state, Duo had not realized that Heero had spoken until he heard the unsettling term "payment."  
  
"I said I can't leave without being paid."  
  
"Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I suppose the good people at ACME Picks and Sticks would like to be compensated. . ."  
  
"Not to mention my boss. . ." Heero almost cringed at the memory. But he didn't. He had gotten very good at not cringing.  
  
"So, it wouldn't be enough if I just wrapped it back up and sent you home."  
  
"No."  
  
"Crud."  
  
The wind howled through the dying leaves and Deathscythe joined in.  
  
"Well, we can figure out what to do about the money later. Right now, there's something I've wanted to do for a looooong time," Duo said, reaching into his pocket for the largest lock picks.  
  
As the padlock fell open for the first time in almost nine years, Heero could not help but feel a pang of jealousy. The black dragon reared up and shook himself- something he had needed to do for quite a while. Wing Zero tilted his head and his expression seemed to soften. He was obviously affected by the release of a fellow dragon.  
  
"Hey, D-scythe! We're free! Yeah, you hear that? We're free! YAY!!!" Duo yelled up at the sleek creature, who responded by leaning down so Duo could scratch his neck as he had when they were smaller.  
  
Heero almost did not want to interrupt the moment.  
  
"So," he began.  
  
"Right," Duo answered, still patting Deathscythe. "Well?"  
  
"Don't look at me. I'm new here," Heero said.  
  
Duo rolled his eyes.  
  
"Does that mean you're stupid, too?" he rudely asked.  
  
"Remember, I came up with the last idea," Heero said coldly.  
  
"Oh yeah. I guess it's up to me then, huh?"  
  
Wing Zero's shimmery red and white scales threw the weak sunlight against the side of the castle in hundreds of tiny spectrums as he made himself comfortable on the lawn.  
  
"You might as well," Heero told his dragon. "This may take a while." 


	3. Rapunzel, the Sniffles and the Girl at t...

*Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing, the folktale Rapunzel, The Wizard of Oz, or Raiders of the Lost Ark. So don't tell me you thought I did! ^-^ And I promise not to sell this and make boo coos of money off it.*  
  
Chapter 3 Two hours later  
  
"So you can't just explain to your boss that I had no money?"  
  
"No," Heero said for the millionth time.  
  
"That I ran away?"  
  
"No."  
  
"That I had a massive seizure and-"  
  
"No."  
  
"Crud."  
  
"If you'd like, I can make you experience something close to a seizure," Heero suggested with a little more emotion than previously- an emotion that seemed scarily like. . . anticipation? Hmm. . . Duo decided not to push it.  
  
"Well, I guess there's only one thing to do," Duo said. He waited for a "What?" but all he got was silence from the seemingly disinterested young man.  
  
"Yeah, okay," he began, feeling a little embarrassed as he readjusted himself and sat up a little straighter against Deathscythe. "I was thinking that since we have no money and skinny witch woman does, all we have to do is lay a trap for her when she comes back, take her dough, split it appropriately and fly outta here."  
  
"Hn," Heero said in what seemed like approval as he smoothed dirt over the scrawling he had just made with a twig and began to sketch something new. Duo couldn't tell what he had been drawing, but it looked kind of like an upside down incendiary device.  
  
"Uhh, whatcha doin' now?" he asked.  
  
"I need a full tour of the house and a list of items we can use in creating the trap. Which door does she usually enter by?" Duo now saw that Heero was sketching the castle! In the dirt. . . and from an angle, it really looked like a bomb. 'Weird kid, this one,' Duo thought.  
  
"Uh, the front one," he answered.  
  
"Okay. And when will she return?"  
  
Duo paused to think.  
  
"What day is it?" he asked.  
  
"Tuesday the 21st."  
  
"Okay, that gives us. . ." he counted on his fingers, "five days to prepare. This'll be no sweat!"  
  
Heero put the twig down and sat back against the hemlock behind him.  
  
"I have to be back at work in four days or I stop getting paid."  
  
"That stinks! Why four days?"  
  
"That's the travel time from HQ to here, with sleeping and eating breaks. If we skip sleeping and eat takeout, we can make it in two and a half days."  
  
"Ah." Duo twiddled his thumbs for a minute. Then he asked, "how long does it take to get from here to Emerald City?"  
  
"About a day and a half. With breaks."  
  
"Okay. And from there to your HQ?"  
  
"Two and a half days. I flew over the City on the way here."  
  
"Great! See, that's where witch face went! So, we fly over to the green place, steal some of her money and send you on your way back to work! No problem!" he said giving his idea two thumbs up.  
  
"But she'll be on the road soon to get back by her desired date. We would run into her on the way, and the forest would be a dangerous place to hide."  
  
"No no no. She's rich, remember? She goes by private jet."  
  
"Oh," Heero acknowledged and remembered the open field on the other side of the castle. It could be used as a runway. Strange that he hadn't seen any tracks from the jet taking off- unless she had used her magic to keep her yard nice. That was probably it.  
  
"Well, robbing her in the City could work," Heero said, "but we'll have to leave soon. You can tell me about her on the way so we can formulate a plan."  
  
'Who uses words like formulate?' Duo wondered, but said,  
  
"Okey dokey! Let's go!" Duo ran to the other end of the castle yard and took a saddle and reins from the stable to fasten to Deathscythe's back. Just as he was about to hop on, an 'eep' popped out of his mouth.  
  
"Eep!" Duo eeped. "I just thought of something! Be right back!" Heero just sighed, hoping the braided boy didn't take too long doing whatever it was that had just occurred to him.  
  
After a bathroom trip and after relieving Dorothy's kitchen of most of its non-perishables, Duo stopped by the TV, unplugged the cable box and descrambler and gently threw them into the backpack he had found in the hall closet. He hadn't seen any sign of his personal effects when he had looked for them during his search for the witch's money. It didn't matter too much- a Cinq Army knife and a yo-yo could be easily replaced. He wondered for a moment at the irony- a CINQ army knife. He couldn't remember the Cinq ever fighting in a war, even to defend itself. . . Ah, well. Just one of those things that didn't make sense, like "military intelligence" or yogurt in a tube. What was up with that stuff, anyway?  
  
"Dratted witch probably sold my stuff. . ." Duo grumbled as he left the castle, purloining a few other items on his way out the back door.  
  
"Hey, Heero! I got some good stuff here!" he called to the solemn boy seated atop the reddish-white dragon.  
  
Heero's eyes almost widened as he thought of something- Was THAT why this kid acted so screwed up?  
  
"See? Apples and bananas! And a peppercorn cracker (don't care too much for that myself, but it ain't moldy, at least), some weird jelly looking stuff called ca-vi-ar," he sounded out, "and some other random stuff." He continued fishing thru the bag to count his goodies.  
  
"Oh," Heero said. That hadn't been what he was expecting, but even though it didn't explain anything, it was much more useful.  
  
"And check it out! Cable boxes! We can sell these later and buy some real food, like cheese doodles and popcorn. And maybe a steak. I like steak," he rambled as he climbed onto Deathscythe's scaly spine.  
  
"Are you sure you won't fall off with all of that on your back?" Heero asked.  
  
"Uh. . ." Duo glanced down. "Now that you mention it, this bag might mess up my balance." He didn't mention that he hadn't flown on a dragon since he was seven, when he stole the neighbors' and took him out for a spin. So, Heero was a nice boy and took half the contents of Duo's knapsack.  
  
And then, they were off!  
  
Things went smoothly for a while. Duo followed behind Heero and both boys simply enjoyed the feeling of freedom, while occasionally glancing down at the trail of yellow brick that marked their path. Out in the country there was no traffic so they had the skies to themselves.  
  
Until the storm came.  
  
A thick, dark mass of vaporized dihydrogen monoxide rolled in suddenly, releasing torrents of rain and sending leaves, then broken branches, and finally trees, flying.  
  
Duo and Heero quickly landed and sought refuge in a nearby cave.  
  
"This sure throws a very wet and nasty wrench into our plans," Duo muttered, squeezing the water out of his braid.  
  
"There's nothing we can do but wait out the storm," Heero stated.  
  
"Ugh," Duo moaned and flopped onto the dirty stone floor.  
  
Heero stopped wringing out his socks for a moment and wrinkled his nose.  
  
"What's with you?" Duo asked from his prostrate position.  
  
"Something smells bad."  
  
Duo sniffed the air.  
  
"I don't smell anything," he said with a shrug. "Maybe it's wet dragon and I don't smell it because I'm used to it."  
  
"Maybe it's wet YOU," Heero suggested. Duo smelled his arm.  
  
"No, I don't smell bad." Heero glared and began to walk towards Duo.  
  
"Hey man, what's with that look?" He began to scoot away from the devilish looking delivery boy.  
  
"Uh, heh heh, you want somethin' Heero buddy?"  
  
"Yes," Heero stated. He then picked Duo up by his collar and the waist of his pants, dragged him to the mouth of the cave and threw him out into the rain.  
  
"I want you to take a shower."  
  
"Now just a cotton pickin' minute here, Mr. Moody Pants!" Duo didn't bother to finish, because the cave entry was now blocked by a very large, shimmery scaled face, complete with protruding fangs.  
  
"Uh, hey there Wing Zero," Duo stammered. Zero gave him the same glare that his pilot had and settled down to catch a few winks.  
  
"Uh, Deathscythe?" Duo called. "It's kinda cold out here and it feels like this rain might turn into sleet at any second. . ."  
  
"If it does, we'll let you back in," Heero called.  
  
"But I want back in NOW!" Duo whined.  
  
"No."  
  
"DEATHSCYTHE!!! HELP ME!!!"  
  
Deathscythe raised his head over Zero's back and gave Duo a sympathetic look, but did nothing about his friend's predicament.  
  
"Aw, c'mon man! It's really cold out here!" Duo said, rubbing his arms in a pointless attempt to get warm.  
  
"If I had to guess, I'd say Deathscythe doesn't care for the way you smell, either," Duo heard Heero say.  
  
"NOT FUNNY!"  
  
"I didn't say it was. You couldn't have brought some shampoo with you, could you?"  
  
"Why would I?"  
  
"Of course. Why would you not want to smell like a sewer rat?"  
  
"I'm really beginning to not like you." Duo stated.  
  
"Catch," Heero's voice said and a plastic bottle with amber liquid flew over Wing Zero's body. Duo caught the shampoo and stared at it for a second.  
  
"As soon as you wash your hair, you can come back in."  
  
"Do you have any idea how long that's going to take???"  
  
Heero shrugged, not caring that Duo did not have X-ray vision to see it.  
  
"Fine, fine," Duo muttered. "I'll wash it. But don't complain if I use it all!"  
  
"Just get clean."  
  
"'Just get clean,'" Duo mocked in a squeaky tone. "'Just get clean.' What are you, my mother?"  
  
"Thank God, no. Now stop whining. I'm trying to relax."  
  
Duo's blood began to boil, but it still wasn't enough to keep him warm. So, he flipped open the lid and poured some shampoo onto his palm.  
  
When Duo had finally managed to get his knotted mass of hair ungunked, he begged readmittance to the cave. Wing Zero shifted to allow Duo to enter.  
  
"Guess I ought to say thanks, but I don't really feel inclined," Duo said rudely to the dragon. So what if he bit him for it? Duo was too numb to feel anything at the moment. However, the dragon was not in the mood to care what the strange human said. He finally didn't stink, and that was all that mattered.  
  
Duo was delighted to see that the delivery boy had found some dry wood in the cave and had built a small fire. For this reason only, Duo put off pestering him and got to work making his goose bumps disappear.  
  
"So," Duo said after a while. He had been silently combing the kinks out of his hair which flowed every which way on the floor and embarrassed him to no end. "Why don'tcha tell me a little somthin' about yourself? Like, for instance, what's wrong with you that you make people stand in the frickin' freezing rain?"  
  
"It isn't freezing," Heero deadpanned. "It's at least forty-one degrees out there, maybe forty-two."  
  
"Oh, you suck."  
  
Heero shrugged.  
  
"But you're not getting out of telling me about you. Go on. Talk," Duo insisted.  
  
Heero did not obey, but it was not from a lack of desire to make conversation. Talking wasn't so bad sometimes (sometimes. . .) and being a delivery boy did get lonely. Unfortunately, Heero could not think of a single thing to say about himself.  
  
"I don't know what you want me to say."  
  
"I told you! Talk about yourself."  
  
"There isn't much to say in that area."  
  
"Geez, are you really so boring?" Duo asked rudely.  
  
"I don't have to take this," Heero said with a glare.  
  
"No. You're free to go outside if you don't like the company in here."  
  
Fortunately, Duo sat on the opposite side of the campfire as Heero, so if he tried that throwing him in the rain stunt again, Duo would see it coming.  
  
Heero grunted.  
  
"Where'd you learn to make that sound?" Duo asked.  
  
"My father did it."  
  
"Really? What was your dad like?"  
  
Heero shrugged.  
  
"Okay, I guess. He died when I was young."  
  
"Hey, there's a similarity between us!" Duo said delightedly.  
  
"You're happy about our fathers being dead?" a confused Heero asked.  
  
"No! Not about that. It's just that we have something in common. And that's better than having absolutely nothing in common."  
  
"Why?" Heero asked.  
  
Now Duo grunted.  
  
"You are hopeless, man. You'd think YOU were the one locked in a tower and never allowed contact with the outside world."  
  
"I was, too," Heero said before his rational side could stop him.  
  
"Eh?"  
  
"Well, metaphorically speaking. There's not much in life for a lowly delivery boy."  
  
"Ah," was Duo's only response. He waited for Heero to continue, but as he wasn't about to, Duo decided to leave it be- for now.  
  
"Okay, well, g'night, Heero buddy."  
  
"Good night."  
  
***  
  
The next morning, the storm was gone but Duo woke with a bit of a sniffle.  
  
"ACHOO!" he sneezed. "Aw, man, now that is gross."  
  
Heero grimaced.  
  
"Must you share everything about your life?"  
  
"You could be a little helpful," Duo suggested and began to root through his bag for a box of tissues.  
  
"Don't tell me I didn't bring any Kleenex," he muttered.  
  
Heero quickly found his and tossed Duo the box.  
  
"Ah, so you are good for something!"  
  
Heero scowled.  
  
"Oh, don't look at me like that," Duo said as he wiped his nose. "This nose ain't runnin' for fun. This is YOUR fault."  
  
"Why is it my fault?"  
  
"BECAUSE YOU MADE ME GO OUT IN THE FREEZING RAIN!"  
  
"I told you, it wasn't freezing."  
  
Duo gave him a look that showed he was seriously questioning the spandex clad boy's sanity.  
  
"But wait- if a little rain can make you sick, how did you survive in that tower?" Heero questioned.  
  
"It wasn't a LITTLE rain, that's how, you moronic weirdo!"  
  
"Oh," he said, ignoring the offensiveness of Duo's comment. "But I've been in wet weather colder than that."  
  
"Well, excuuuse me for being a mere mortal!" Duo sneezed again and blew his nose.  
  
'Oh!' Heero thought as his inner voice exclaimed, 'You idiot. You forgot everyone doesn't have delivery boy powers!'  
  
'Oh yeah,' Heero muttered silently.  
  
"Man, this stinks. This isn't supposed to happen! I've never gotten sick before!" Duo whined.  
  
"It's all in your head. You're sick because you're feeling sorry for yourself," Heero explained.  
  
"Where'd you come up with that, Dr. Quack?"  
  
"You never get sick, but now you are. You're just in a bad mood and that's why."  
  
"And that couldn't be YOUR fault, too?"  
  
"I don't know. All I know is if I were in your shoes, I'd be a little more grateful."  
  
Duo wanted to remark about how stupid he found Heero's logic, but he did have one point- Duo was free! He shouldn't let a messed up delivery boy ruin his happiness.  
  
"We'd better eat breakfast on the way," Heero said. He and Duo packed up their sleeping bags and mounted the dragons, who, unlike their riders, were getting along perfectly.  
  
***  
  
A few hours later, they ran into more trouble.  
  
"Ugh. . ." Duo ughed. "You don't happen to have another box of Kleenex, do ya?"  
  
"No," Heero answered from Wing Zero's back.  
  
"That's very bad. Very, very bad. I'm almost out."  
  
"Can't you recycle?"  
  
"And you said I was gross!"  
  
"We lost too many hours because of the storm. I don't want to have to stop again."  
  
"If we don't stop, I'm stealing your shirt for a tissue."  
  
"Just try it."  
  
"I will!"  
  
Heero sighed. Wasting time fighting atop airborne dragons was not a good idea. Maybe he had better just stop at the next convenience store and pick up a few more tissue boxes.  
  
The next rest stop they came to had a quaint looking restaurant and Duo insisted they go in.  
  
"We have food," Heero pointed out, "and no time to eat on the ground."  
  
"Just one burger! Pleeease, I haven't had one in sooo long! I eat quick, I promise!"  
  
Heero relented and they left the dragons in the parking lot down the street. Inside the restaurant, a young woman was serving beer to her patrons. Duo's jaw hit the floor when he saw her.  
  
"How do I look?" he asked Heero, not once taking his eyes off the pretty, spunky barmaid.  
  
"Awful."  
  
"Better than yesterday?"  
  
"You smell better."  
  
"I'll take what I can get," he said, and made his way over to an empty stool. Heero followed and hoped they wouldn't be there all day.  
  
"What can I get ya?" the raven haired girl asked cordially. Instead of ordering his hamburger, Duo blurted out the first thing that came into his head.  
  
"Gosh, you're pretty." The girl smiled. She was used to men calling her attractive, but they usually did it in less. . . polite ways. Scandalous ways, in fact.  
  
"Thank you," she said and intended to ask him again what he wanted to drink and if he wanted an appetizer, but instead she asked him for his name.  
  
"Rapunzel," Duo replied and stuck his chest out a little.  
  
"Is that a nickname?" the girl asked.  
  
"Technically, yeah. I used to be Duo," he told her.  
  
"I like that. Duo."  
  
"I'll have a lemon lime soda," Heero said. Duo could have killed him, but that probably wouldn't have made the girl like him very much.  
  
"Sure," she said, remembering her job. "Is Emerald Mist okay?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"And," she said, blushing as she faced Duo, "what would you like to drink?"  
  
The rumbling in Duo's stomach reminded him that there was something he wanted more than to kiss the waitress. Food.  
  
"I'll have a cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake. And a box of Kleenex, if you've got one."  
  
She handed him a box from under the counter and told him it was on the house.  
  
Duo thanked the pretty lady.  
  
"Thanks, pretty lady."  
  
Heero wanted to barf.  
  
Duo watched the girl's every move as she placed the order at the window to the kitchen and served them their drinks. He had been so distracted by watching what she was doing and counting the number of times that she glanced at him that he forgot to read her name tag. Heero told him that it had said, "Hilde."  
  
"Hilde. . . that's so pretty. She's so pretty," he said, sounding completely out of it.  
  
"I guess I ought to be tolerant of this puppy love, seeing as how you haven't seen a girl other than the witch Dorothy in years."  
  
"Oh, don't remind me of her. I just want to watch Hilde." He said her name slowly, enjoying how nice it sounded. "Man. . . she can lock me in her tower any time she wants to. Whaddaya say, Heero? You do think she's cute, right?"  
  
But Heero wasn't listening. His attention had been stolen by a suspicious looking customer around the corner of the bar.  
  
"Fraulein," the man said, beckoning Hilde to him.  
  
"Nasty old pervert," Duo said. "He's way too old for her. He must be like, thirty!"  
  
"Does there seem something odd about him to you?"  
  
"Yeah, he's hitting on my future girl."  
  
"Other than that. That shifty look. He's up to something," Heero said.  
  
For the first time since entering the restaurant, Duo took his eyes off of his charming angel.  
  
"Don't tell me you're a spy, too! Heero. . . something. Obnoxiously mild mannered delivery boy by day, still obnoxious secret agent by night."  
  
Heero might have replied -then again, he might have just ignored Duo- but he heard an angry female voice yelling. Duo flipped his head to see Hilde, smacking Heero's back with the long, looped braid.  
  
"You will give it to me, Fraulein," the man said.  
  
"That's perverted!" she exclaimed and tried to twist her arm away from him.  
  
"You know that isn't what I meant; however, if you do not comply with my wishes, you may have to worry about that."  
  
Hilde swiped a knife from the bar and jabbed it into the man's arm. He snarled and grasped a few napkins from the silver dispenser to place over the wound. Duo cheered for Hilde as he hopped over the bar to stand by her side. He liked her feistiness, but he wouldn't mind being her hero.  
  
"Yee haw! That's what you get for being a nasty old man!" Duo exclaimed and put an arm around Hilde's shoulder.  
  
"Duo, look out!" Heero said. The man was pulling a gun from his jacket with his good arm.  
  
"Eep!" Duo eeped and pulled Hilde below counter level. Heero had already drawn his own gun and as soon as Duo and Hilde were out of the way, he shot the gun from the older man's hand while flying over the bar. It looked extremely cool- except for the hard landing on the other side, but no one could see that, so it didn't matter.  
  
The other folks in the restaurant were clearing out quickly and the kitchen staff was being very quiet. Apparently, pervert guy had back up and they were currently dousing the kitchen with gasoline and pointing large, shiny weapons at the cooks.  
  
"What does he want from you?" Duo asked as Mr. Thirty-something fetched his firearm.  
  
"This," Hilde said, and pulled a pendant on a thin rope from under her shirt. Duo didn't mind the view her action gave him and said,  
  
"No wonder. . . I mean- I wonder why he wants it."  
  
"To control the world."  
  
"Okay. Wait- what?"  
  
"Is there a back way out?" Heero asked.  
  
"Yes," Hilde replied. They heard forceful commands from the direction of the kitchen. "But it's through the kitchen."  
  
"Darn it," Duo muttered. "Well, I guess good ol' Heero can shoot our way out!"  
  
At that moment, flames sprang to life and scaled the kitchen walls.  
  
"Preferably soon," he added. 


	4. Happenings Under the Bar and Beneath the...

Chapter 4

Last time on Rapunzel Maxwell:

Duo and Heero, having been forced to seek shelter in a cave during a violent storm, have lost a night of traveling.  

They had been hoping to make it to the Emerald City in one day, leaving a day and a half to plan and execute said plan of robbing Witch Dorothy Catalonia of all they can carry.  Duo would then high-tail it outta there and Heero would use the remaining day and a half to get back to HQ and deliver the money to his boss, thereby keeping the job that makes him miserable.  

However, a day has passed and the boys have not yet reached Emerald City.  Currently, they and the barmaid Duo has a crush on are trapped under a bar at a small town restaurant by a relic-seeking gunman and his cronies.

***

"Plan, fast, Heero!"  Duo said, pulling his legs under the counter.  Heero was already looking around for anything they could use to their advantage.

"How about a distraction?" Hilde suggested.

"She's not only beautiful, she's brilliant, too!" Duo exclaimed.

"If only we could use the fire against them," Heero said.

"If only there weren't so darn many rolls of paper towels under here I might be able to fit better," Duo said.

Suddenly, both boys had an idea.  They looked at one another and nodded.  Fortunately, it was the same idea and they quickly got to work weighing down the ends of the rolls with utensils.  They unwound a considerable number of paper towel sheets and threw the ends through the window and into the kitchen, where they quickly caught on fire.  

"I hope I won't get fired for helping burn this place down," Hilde said as she threw a fork attached to paper towel into the fire.

"Let's work on staying alive," Heero suggested.

"Yeah, I wanna have the chance to take you someplace nice," Duo said to Hilde.

"What would you know about nice places?" Heero asked.

"Geez, almost getting killed doesn't agree with you, does it?" Duo asked.

"I was being serious.  What would you know about nice places?"

Duo growled.  

"Let me take a shot in the dark and guess that you two weren't dining out because you enjoy the other's company?" Hilde said.

"Nope.  Heero didn't even want to come!"

"Aren't you glad we did?"

Duo would have creatively insulted Heero, but the paper towel rolls were catching fire.

"Set those other rolls burning," Heero instructed Hilde and turned to Duo.  "On the count of three."

"Are you alright, Colonel Bund?" a voice from the other side of the bar was saying.

"What do you think?"

"Uhh. . ."

"Stop standing there slack-jawed like an idiot and point your gun at the bar!"

But the verbally abused lowly underling didn't have the opportunity because his uniform had just caught on fire, thanks to the burning roll of paper towels Duo had just chucked over the bar.

Duo, Hilde and Heero's efforts combined with the burning kitchen quickly caused the enemy to clear out to avoid being broiled.  The kitchen staff had apparently made it out, too, and except for the crackling of the fire, the restaurant was silent.  

"Ya think they're gone?" Hilde asked.

"Let's find out," Duo said and stuck his head over the top of the counter.  "Looks empty," he reported.

"Let's take it slow, just to be sure," Heero said.  They carefully hopped over the counter but as soon as they did, Heero's Delivery Boy Sense ™ kicked in and he spun around, once more shooting the gun from the crafty Colonel's hand.

"Must you keep doing that?" he demanded.  Heero shrugged.

"Can't really help it."

"You sneaky jerk!  Hiding on the other side of the bar!" Duo exclaimed.  "Just why are you so darn persistent?"

"I want the medallion and I will get it!"

 Heero raised an eyebrow.  

"Why do you want it so badly?" he asked.

"To rule the world!"

"Hn."

"Great; we're in a burning building with two psychopaths.  I dunno about you, but I'd like to leave," Duo said.

"Fine with me," Hilde said.  "But just one thing."  She walked over to the man who was still sitting between two bar stools and swiftly kicked him in the gut.

"That's for being a pervert!"

Unfortunately, despite the intense pain he felt from all his recently inflicted wounds, the nasty old man was able to grab her foot and trip her, thereby sending the necklace flying.  Duo rushed to her and the man tried to rush past them both to the medallion, but Heero threw himself into Mr. Crazy-Colonel-Man and they both fell to the floor.

"Way to go, Heero!" Duo began to cheer, but pulled Hilde behind an overturned metal topped table when he saw Heero and the Colonel struggling for Heero's gun.

"Why the heck does a spandex wearing delivery boy have a gun?  Why don't I have a gun?" Duo asked the ceiling.

"Why don't I have a gun, either?" Hilde asked.  "That would come in very handy right about now.  Blast it!  We have to get that medallion back!"

"Right, so that wack job doesn't take over the world!  I can't I believe I just said that. . .   I really don't get this," Duo said, shaking his head.

"Don't worry about it," Hilde said.  As luck would have it, Heero was currently a point ahead of Bundy in the grappling for the gun contest.  She grabbed Duo's hand and ran towards the medallion, which was conveniently surrounded by burning ceiling tile.

"Get out while you can!" Heero instructed them as he continued to wrestle with the colonel, who was strong despite his wounds.  While Hilde and Duo were looking around for something to pull the medallion away from the fire with, Colonel Bund gained two points by forcing the gun from Heero's grasp and onto the floor.  He punched Heero in the face and reached for the medallion.

Apparently, the Colonel was either not very bright or simply not thinking clearly – well, no, he was probably just crazy, because he tried to take the hot metal pendant with his bare hand.  While he clutched his wrist and screamed in pain, Heero retrieved his gun and Hilde used  chair to pull the pendant towards her.  Duo pulled off his shirt and used it to pick up the medallion and the three young 'uns made for the front door as the ceiling beams crashed down behind them. 

Mounted OZ police were galloping towards the scene, so Duo and Heero rushed to get out of sight.  Hilde followed because Duo still held her pendant. . . but even if he hadn't been holding it, he was pretty cute.  Granted he was a stranger, but almost dying together is generally a bonding experience.

And she hadn't even gotten a decent look at him shirtless!

Wing and Deathscythe were waiting uneasily when their boys returned.  They had heard the collapse of the café and were worried that their people might have been inside.  But before they had the opportunity to thoroughly sniff them and determine just what they had been up to, the boys untied them from the tree and hopped on.

"Oh wow.  These are gorgeous dragons!" Hilde exclaimed.  "What breed are they?"

"Gundams," Duo said as he untied the rope.  He clambered onto D-scythe's back and offered his hand to Hilde.  Being an experienced dragon rider herself, she did not need his assistance. . . but what fun would letting him know that be?

But wait a minute. . . where were they going, anyway?

"Duo, where are you guys going, anyway?"

"The Green Metropolis, babe.  The city of neon lime florescent lights and all the late night Jello diners a guy could ask for.  You, uh, are gonna come with us, aren't you?  I can't imagine you'd wanna stick around this place."

"But I haven't even packed, and my boss will worry and tell everyone that I'm missing!"

"I don't think it's very safe for you to remain here," Heero pointed out, not only because he didn't want her to get creamed by crazy renegade Colonel followers, but because he didn't want to get creamed by crazy renegade Colonel followers.  Or mounted OZies.  He had never been fond of OZ – in fact, he downright hated them.  Plus, he was darned if he was going to allow himself to fall any more behind schedule.  That weird braided kid and his ideas. . . 

"But I hate to run like I'm afraid of them!" Hilde said vehemently.

"I'm afraid of them," Duo muttered.  "But c'mon, Hilde!  Staying would be like suicide!  If you're gonna let yourself die, at least die for a purpose.  Otherwise, what point is there?"

Hilde had to agree with his logic.

"Yeah, I guess you're right.  They're on to me now, so I might as well make it harder for them to find me," she said as she pulled herself up to stand on Deathscythe's folded hind leg.  She accepted Duo's hand to get the rest of the way to her seat.  

"Hey, Duo, can I have my medallion back now?"

"Oh, yeah, right.  Sorry, babe," Duo said sheepishly.  He'd kinda forgot that since it was hers, she might want it back.  He tried to watch her put it back on out of the corner of his eye as he reshirted himself, but in the end, he was all too obvious.  She tucked the pendant into her shirt and tried not to laugh at him.  She did not normally appreciate young men (or any men) attempting to look down her shirt, but there was something about this particular guy that made her want to laugh at him, hug him, and punch him in the arm all at the same time.  She didn't want to hit him or laugh at him and reveal that she had noticed, but she would get to hug him soon enough.  Duo took a seat a little closer to Deathscythe's neck than usual, leaving the saddle open for her.  

"Duo, I wouldn't mind riding bareback."

"What, and deny the lady the comfort of an expensive purloined saddle?  I think not."

"You STOLE this??"

Now she did smack him.

"Hey, hey, ow, cut it out.  I took it from the gal who kept me locked in her tower for like, eight years."

"Locked in a tower?  Are you serious?  That sounds so antiquated. . . like it came from a fairy tale or something.  Do you really expect me to believe that?!"

"What, and carrying a medallion around so some fruitcake won't use it to try to rule the world isn't weird???" Duo exclaimed.

Heero rolled his eyes.

"Duo was indeed locked in a tower; I was there when he got out," he informed her.  "Now please, sit down so we can leave.  I don't want some witness to point the police in our direction."

"Are we running from the police, _too_?"

"We're about to commit a well deserved robbery, so I guess we are, just a little ahead of time," Duo said.

"WHAT?"

"I'll explain later.  We're the good guys, really!" he said, tossing a smile in her direction.  "Trust me."

Hilde half growled/half sighed.

"Fine.  But if I find that you're up to anything, you're gonna get it, mister!"

"But Hilde, we are up to something.  I just told you that."

Hilde couldn't decide if she wanted to laugh or scream, so she settled on clenching her teeth to avoid both.  Plopping down onto the saddle, she threw her arms around Duo's waist.

Duo grinned as he flicked his wrists and sent a ripple thru the reins, signaling to Deathscythe that taking off would be the cool thing to do.  

Wing Zero took the lead as they merged into the light flow of country traffic.  His rider was surprisingly not completely silent the whole time, though most of what he said involving flying directions and information about the layout of Emerald City.

But talking also gave him a reason for flying close to the chatty pair, which would allow him to hear if Hilde gave an explanation about that medallion.  He couldn't help it.  He was curious.

Unfortunately, neither brought it up.  Duo seemed more interested in her dating status and favorite brands of chewing gum, and she was pretty busy answering his questions and telling him about her childhood.  So, it was up to Heero to find out just how dangerous their cargo was.

"Hilde, what can you tell us about the medallion?"

Duo stopped in mid sentence, cocked his head to one side and said,

"Yeah, I meant to ask you about that.  What's the deal?"

She took a deep breath.  It wasn't a good idea to tell anyone about the medallion, especially not two thieves!  Of course she had let that using-it-to-control-the-world part slip. . . but that was back when Duo had simply seemed be a nice guy with odd hair.  Now, he was a nice scheming fugitive with odd hair – never a good combination.  

But she had to say something. . . preferably as little as possible.

"Well, it's kind of a secret."

"But you know our secret!  C'mon, honey.  Pleeease?" Duo pleased in his cutest voice.

"Oh. . . you do have a point. . . but, it's dangerous."

"All the more reason we should know.  If you're going to travel with us we should know the risks," Heero pointed out.

"Even better point," she muttered.  

She glanced at the ground.  Yup.  Too far to jump.

"All right.  The story I was told is that-"

"Woah, flying OZies at 2:15," Duo warned. 

"What a time for a coincidence," an aggravated Heero muttered as he and Duo quickly landed their dragons in a field of large, tall flowers.  If they laid down, the flowers might hide them.

"What a time for a coincidence!" Duo declared cheerfully.  "Now lay down, D-Scythe!  Good thing you're still thin from being half-starved!

Deathscythe made the dragon equivalent of rolling one's eyes affectionately toward a strange but loved human.

"Good thing your dragons are so fast," Hilde said as she bent and tied some of the long flowers over the dragons.  "The OZ troops' fleet isn't nearly the quality of these guys!" 

Wing Zero did the dragon equivalent of nodding immodestly.

But he got away with it.  He was Wing Zero.  And Hilde was right.

With the dragons possibly sufficiently hidden under a cover of stalks, Heero lay on his back gazing past the red-petalled flowers that swayed gently on their stalks about six feet above his face.  The OZ squad should pass over any second now.  He should be ready to jump in case the OZies saw thru their ceiling of blossoms.  Rolling onto one side, his outstretched arm brushed against something smooth.  He hesitated a moment.

It hadn't blown up, so he ran a finger over it.

It wasn't a knife, or a gun, or an incendiary device (you could never be too careful when your job was delivering packages).  Without taking his eyes off the sky, he closed his fingers around it and pulled it to just inside his area of vision.

It was a glass bottle.  A mostly pink, ornate to the point of gaudiness bottle.  He held it against the light and tipped it over.  The cap stayed in place but he saw no liquid moving within. 

'Hm, no rations,' was his thought as he tossed it back over his head.

"OW!!" Duo yelped.

"Sorry," Heero said.

"The heck is this?  A bottle?"

"Ooh, it's ugly," Hilde said.  "No wonder someone threw it out."

"Well he didn't have to throw it at me!"

"I didn't mean him, silly."__

"Yeah, yeah, I know.  But he found it, so he gets to keep it!"  And with that, Duo chucked the bottle back in Heero's direction, hitting him in the shoulder.

"RAPUNZEL!  You're an IDIOT!" Heero said, popping his arm back into place.  That was not fun.

"Oh, oh, ew!" Duo groaned.  "You _are the weird one!  Man, why'd I ever team up with this guy?" he asked the sky._

Heero grunted and envisioned himself insulting Duo.  Actually doing so wasn't worth the energy.

"There they go," Hilde said softly, as if the dangerous soldiers would have overheard her normal speaking voice.

Deathscythe shifted slightly.

"Don't move, D-Scythe!" Duo advised.  "Besides, there aren't any cute girl dragons up there, anyway."

"You would be able to tell?" Hilde asked.  Duo shrugged, as did Deathscythe, but no one noticed and so he received no admonition for having moved once more.

"You know, I like it when he calls me that," Duo said to Hilde.

"What, 'Rapunzel?'"

"Yeah.  I haven't heard anyone but the blonde monster call me that."  He propped himself up on his left elbow.  "I like hearing someone else say it.  _Rapunzel," he uttered dramatically.  "Striking fear in the hearts of delivery boys from the forests of Cinq to the walls of Emerald City, OZ!"_

"No, not fear in my heart.  More like annoyance in my general being, not to mention pain in my neck."

"Ooh, did the bottle catch ya there, too?  Sorry!" Duo said sheepishly, one hand scratching the back of his neck.

"I wouldn't get too close to him, Hilde.  He has fleas."

"HEERO!" Hilde and Duo exclaimed simultaneously. 

"Jinx!  Ha, you owe me a coke!" Duo said, pointing at the object of his attraction.

"You didn't have to pay for your clear carbonated sweetness back at the restaurant, so consider me paid in full."

"Speaking of sweetness," Duo said mischievously, taking her hand in his.  "Have I mentioned that you're the prettiest girl I've ever seen?"

"Yes," Heero muttered.  Duo blinked in annoyance but ignored him.

"Thank you," Hilde said.  "And as long as we're baring our souls here," she began jokingly, "you're pretty cute, yourself."

Duo beamed.  That felt so good, hearing her compliment him.  He was falling and fast.  Like a neurotic rabbit down a trippy rabbit hole.

"They're gone," Heero announced.

"That's nice," said Duo.  Then to Hilde, "So which am I, pretty or cute?"

"We should get going.  Emerald City is not too far away.  We can reach it tonight if we make good time," practical Heero noted.

Duo tapped a finger against Hilde's hand in frustration.  

"Now Duo, it's all right.  We get to share a dragon, remember?" Hilde murmured flirtily. 

"Yeah, yeah," he groaned.

"Oh, come on," she said, standing up and attempting to pull him up as well.  "You need to get to the City!  Don't you still want to go?"

"Yeah… I just wish I didn't have to go now!"

"You can go in the flowers.  I won't look," Heero quipped.

"Dammit, SHUT UP!" Duo yelled.  "I'm frickin' tired of your attitude, hot pants boy!"

"I'm tired of you in your entirety!" Heero shouted back.

"Boys, cut it out!" Hilde commanded loudly.

"You had better get on that dragon in the next three seconds or so help me, I will destroy you!" Heero said with a cold and altogether eerie flash in his eyes, paying absolutely no mind to the local girl.

"Only wusses say destroy instead of kill, you wuss!" Duo retorted, his left eye twitching and veins swelling.

Seeing that both young men were on the verge of violence, Hilde called for help.

"Deathscythe, Wing, help out here, will ya?"

Casting a glance at one another, the dragons lethargically rose so as to appear more imposing.  They nudged their boys, hoping they would take the hint.  

But like most humans seemed to be, these two were completely dense.

"Ah, see?  I can't get on D now- he's too tall!  Whaddaya gonna do about them apples, you cabbage head?"

Heero quickly mulled over the list he had compiled of ways he could cause harm to the braided idiot.  The most gratifying of them involved Heero's fists and Duo's mouth, or possibly his hair, but he knew Wing would never let him get that close.  And shooting him would be most imprudent, as Heero still needed his financial aid.  Plus, there was the Hilde factor.  She'd most likely raise a fuss and then he'd have to deal with that.  If Deathscythe didn't chomp him first.  And then it would be dragon versus dragon, Hilde taking the winner, if one survived.  How could he allow that to happen?  You don't get a dragon just for being attacked in a bar; it doesn't work that way.

Heero could not allow that to happen.  Improvisation was required.

The solution struck him with roughly the velocity of the bottle Duo had earlier lobbed at his head.  And it was just that- the bottle.  Heero swiftly scooped it up and hurled it at the loopy boy.  Fortunately for one Duo "I Am the Terror That Burps by Night" Rapunzel Maxwell, he was a speedy and agile lad, and barely escaped bottle induced discomfort by leaping out of the way just in time.

Deathscythe, however, was heftier and not as quick to action on the ground.  The bottle struck his right foreleg and returned once more to the ground with a familiar thud.

But something interesting happened between the striking and the thud.

The bottle's lid got snagged on one of Deathscythe's scales.

Then the bottle landed with that familiar thud just under four feet from poor D-Scythe's foreleg, followed shortly thereafter by the not so familiar thud of the lid, which thudded nearby.

"Oohhh," Duo and Deathscythe howled, one out of empathy.  "D-Scythe, pal, you okay?"  Deathscythe shrugged the dragon equivalent of a macho "I'm cool, yo, but not really" shrug. 

Meanwhile, Heero was blinking.  A lot.  Why in Heaven's name was there pink smoke rising from the mouth of that bottle?

"Why in Heaven's-"

"D-D-D-Duo?" Hilde stuttered, effectively cutting off Heero's momentarily unanswerable query.

"Yeah, Hilde babe?" he said, still checking out Deathscythe's foreleg.

"There is pink smoke coming from that bottle."  She enunciated every word carefully so as to get them all out coherently.  She was questioning whether or not there were something soporific in the flowers that had caused her to drift off and dream this.

But if so, she hoped Duo's flirting behavior weren't part of the dream!  Otherwise, she'd have some catching up to do once she awoke.

"Hoo yah!" Duo hoo yahed and jumped from shock.  He pressed his back against Deathscythe, who was leaning in towards the pink haze (much to Duo's chagrin) to get a whiff of it and determine whether it were animal, vegetable, and/or edible.  

"Quit it, Deathscythe!" the mortified Duo exclaimed.  "You don't wanna get it stuck up your nose, do you?"

Deathscythe held back on the sniffing, but stared just as intently.  If it turned out to be hazardous, he had to be ready to attack and protect these nice, silly people.

The smoke soon materialized into a feminine form.  Heero's jaw dropped.  It was common knowledge back at HQ that he never showed surprise, and bets had been placed on what it would take to bring about that reaction. 

Need it be said that no coworker placed a single Cinq dollar on this?

Didn't think so.

The mist had almost become fully solid.  Her outline was clear and her coloring was more flesh than carnation, with the exception of her hair, eyes and clothes.  The clothes unsurprisingly remained pink while her eyes shone blue.  Half of her blonde locks were swept neatly from her face in twin braids.

Once completely substantial, the bottle girl quickly found her voice.

"Would you please tell me who it was that freed me?"  The assembled company, minus Heero, pointed or looked pointedly at the not-so-stoic-as-usual delivery boy.

The young woman bowed low toward him.

"Hello, Master."

***

AN: Update progress notices and comments can be found in my profile.  Thanks for following the story!!


	5. I Dream of Relena

Chapter 5

"Holy cow pies, a girl just came out of that bottle!" Duo stage whispered, in the hopes that the mysterious girl would not hear him.

But genies have remarkably good hearing, and she smiled at his outburst.

This was one of the most fun parts of being a genie.

Now for the next one.

"Master," she began, raising her eyes to meet his.  If she understood that her master's expression was one of befuddlement and shock, she did not show it.  

"I thank thee from the deepest place in my heart for freeing me from the bottle, which is my home, but has of late become my prison.  I cannot tell thee how long it has been since I have smelled flowers, felt the breeze on my skin, laid eyes on a human.  This is a gift, O magnanimous one, that can never be repaid.  However, I am duty bound to attempt compensation, and do so by giving thee my life in service – anything that thine heart desires will be thine… except of course the position of queen of the world… thou must send away for that."

Heero heard only snippets of her long bit of blather, for he already understood his position as her master and his brain was busy figuring out just what that meant for him and his job.

She certainly wouldn't fit in around the mail room.  All that baggy bright pink clothing might send his coworkers into fits of hysteria.

Yes, a challenge to the dress code would _definitely_ call for his elimination.

Besides, he knew how girls were.  They required attention 82.537% of the week, and that would cut into his missions, er, deliveries.

Well, that was that.  He couldn't be her master.

Dinner date, anytime.  But master, no.

Heero then shuddered at the thought of actually going on a date with an actual woman.  He did not know why, but there was something terrifying about the prospect.

"I'm not your master."

The genie looked confused and glanced at the assembled company.  They pointed at Heero and she smiled.

"I believe that thou art mistaken, Master.  I am your humble genie."

"No."

"Pardon me?"

"I am not your master," he said firmly.  There was no point in acknowledging that he was, because then he would have to take the time to explain _why_ he didn't want to be her master.  Girls always needed explanations.  And for some reason, they really hated being rejected.

"Very well," she huffed.  "Will someone please tell me who it was that caused my bottle to be unsealed?"

Heero pointed at Duo.  The genie girl looked him over, but she didn't find him nearly as handsome as the other one, her should-be, would-be master.

Duo pointed to himself with a questioning expression.

"Me?  Nope, wasn't me.  You threw the bottle, buddy."

The genie then understood why her house had been turned upside down and rolled around roly-poly like.  Thank God she had capped her nail polish.

"But it was you who was acting like a donkey's rear and necessitated my throwing the bottle," Heero said, wishing upon his 98% spandex shorts that Duo would just take the darn genie.

"That's the lamest logic – no, it doesn't even deserve to be called logic," Hilde said.

Heero twitched.  _Illogical?  The girl had indirectly implied that he was ILLOGICAL.  Such a statement showed her hypocrisy, because it was clearly illogical itself._

'I'm very logical,' Heero told himself.

But himself wasn't buying it.

'Stop being a moron and get the girl!  Be her master, woo her, and kiss her smack on the lips under a sky of romantic neon green!' the sometimes far too audible inner voice instructed him.

"No," Heero said aloud.

"Fine, your logic is intact – _you're_ lame," Hilde, having somehow not heard the impossibly loud inner voice, said. 

Duo gazed at her with the utmost respect.  

'Big words… wow, I wanna kiss her!' he thought, but the words that came out sounded a little less stupid.

"You're gorgeous when you talk all smart," he said, inching to her side.

"Really?" she blushed and let him take her hand.

Genie Girl cleared her throat.

"I am sorry for interrupting, but this matter requires hasty resolving."

"Right," Hilde said.  "We can't just leave her there masterless."  

"We can't?" Heero muttered.

"No – that would leave me in a state of purposeless limbo, continually searching for a master, when no one is my rightful, destined master but thee, er, whoever it was that opened my bottle," she said pitiably.  

Heero started to muse on how much that sounded like his present state of life, but before the hot-angsty-boy vibes could distress the genie further, he had an epiphany.

"You said your rightful, destined master is the one who opened your bottle?" he asked.

"Yes; that individual has been preordained by fate to be my lord or lady, to use me to grant them the deepest, purest desires of their hearts – and even some of the not so pure…  But alas, it is my destiny to obey them; I am a servant to the people.  Be they rich or poor, famous or invisible, intelligent or challenged, even a spoiled, under aged dye-job with megalomaniacal aspirations – whoever opens this bottle," she said, extending her arm to indicate the vision of kitsch that lay in the grass near her feet, "I mu-" 

"Then I know who your master is," Heero interrupted.

"Thou dost?  Who is it?"

Heero pointed to somewhere beyond her right shoulder.  She twirled around, but saw only a very toothy dragon equivalent of a "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Heero?"

"Oh.  N-n-n-no.  Absolutely impossible.  No."

"So, let's go to Emerald City,"  Heero said and turned to mount Wing Zero.

"Is that possible?" Hilde asked Duo.

"Beats me.  Hey, Deathscythe!  Looks like you got yourself a girlfriend after all!"

"WHAT?" Genie Girl exclaimed.

"Kiddin', Bottle Girl.  Look – maybe Heero's right for once since I met him.  Maybe you are mine.  I mean, D-Scythe's mine, so I guess by default you're mine, too."

Genie Girl stared without blinking.

"Um, guys," Hilde said.  "I don't know why no one suggested it before, but from what I've heard, a master can free a genie from a lifetime of servitude simply by wishing it."

"Well, for that to happen, Miss Genie would have to decide on a master – one that can actually make wishes," Duo pointed out.

"Yes, that is correct!  Your dragon cannot be my master because he cannot make wishes!"

"Hey," Duo said with a quivery lip.  "Are you saying dragons don't have dreams, the way people do?  Are you saying… Deathscythe doesn't _matter?"_

"I – I, no, I was simply agreeing with that which, uh, thou was just saying, I-"

"Ha ha, just messin' with ya!" Duo said.  Hilde smacked him upside the head with her rolled up apron.

"Be nice to the genie, Duo."

"Fine, okay, fine," he said, rubbing the back of his head.

"Please pardon me for saying so," Genie Girl began, "but thou would be better off not scratching thine-"

"Don't go there," Heero interrupted.  Genie Girl retorted,

"Pardon me, Ex-Would-Be-Master, but thou cannot have wishes granted of me," she said too politely.  "Thou art not my master.  Thou saidest so thyself."

Heero paused.

"You're right.  I did."

And he went back to adjusting Wing's saddle, leaving the genie to deal with it.

"Okaaay," Hilde said, "Raise your hand if you like the genie."

She raised her hand, and Duo did, too – well, halfwayish.  Deathscythe raised a foreleg (the previously whacked one feeling much better by this time).  Wing did not, but flicked his tail around to nudge up Heero's arm.

"Quit moving!" Heero commanded.  "I still need to fasten another strap."

"I think you're in the minority, Heero," Hilde said.

"What's your point?" he said gruffly.

"Try to be a little less of a jerkwad to our guest."

"She's not our guest.  We just happened to meet in these flowers."

"Okay… well, _I'm_ going to invite her to join us, so if you'll excuse me…"

"That is not a good idea."

"Oh?  And why not?  Because with her mystical powers we could get out of this jam?  No, wouldn't want to do that!"

"No.  I can do it on my own."

"Ugh, a little too proud, aren't we?  Man, does he ever need a good woman."

"I'd recommend that," Duo said. 

"Although, I still have no idea what we're doing…" Hilde muttered to Duo as she walked past him.  Duo whistled innocently.

"Anyway," she said, "Hi.  I'm Hilde Schbeiker.  This here is Duo…"

"Maxwell.  Duo Maxwell, at your service.  He runs, he hides, but he never tries talking to Heero when he's having a hissy fit."  Genie Girl wondered what kind of hissy fit one so serious at her would-be-should-be master would throw, if at all, because other than being exasperating he was absolutely wonderful and perfect.  She curtseyed politely.

"Maxwell…  I like your name, Duo," Hilde said.

"Wanna share?"

She giggled and he blushed.  

Oops.  That had been out loud.  He hadn't meant to propose marriage until the next day.  If his uncle had taught him anything about women (and no, he hadn't yet taught him much in that area), it was that a boy shouldn't risk appearing too fresh.

But it was hard not to say what was on one's mind when one was in the presence of the first non-witchy girl one had met in like, forever.  And he had definitely been wondering what it would be like to be married to her.  Well, married or necking at the drive-in.  Same diff.

"Um, yes, well, anyway,"  Hilde said, breaking her gaze from Duo, "that over there is Heero.  I don't know his last name.  He probably won't even tell you if you ask.  As you have seen, he's a total-"

_I must learn his name_, Genie Girl thought.

"Heero?" she said, trying out the name.  How sweet it sounded!  How easily it rolled off her tongue!  How fantastic it would be to one day call him "Heero darling…"

But that would have to wait.

Especially since he appeared to be ignoring her.

"Um…"

Duo crossed the space between himself and the spandex clad lad, flattening a few giant flowers as he tromped through them, and picked up Heero's bag.

"Give me that!" Heero demanded.

"Uh unh!  You snooze, you lose; you flake, I take!" Duo said, rifling thru the green backpack.

"I don't have flakes, you hypocrite," Heero said and lunged for his belongings.

"Ooh, what is this?  It's ID!  Could it be _yours?" Duo said, waving it just out of Heero's reach.  It was too hard to read it with Mr. I-Probably-Have-A-REALLY-Embarrassing-Middle-Name in his way everywhere he turned, so he tossed it to Hilde._

"Catch, babe!"

Heero grunted.

Genie Girl looked questioningly at Hilde, who interpreted her gaze as a "What on Earth?" type look.

"They've been like this since I met them.  A few hours ago."

"But what does it _say_?" Duo and Genie Girl said, a moment before Heero pressed Duo's face to the earth with his knee.

"Heero Yuy."

While Genie Girl looked dreamily off in space and mouthed something over and over to herself, Heero was doing his darndest to suppress Duo's bubbling laughter.  When Duo didn't cease, Heero got bored and released him.

"Fine.  Fine!" he said.  "Just tell us what it means in OZian and get it over with."

"Huh?" Duo said, brushing dirt off his jodhpurs.  "Oh, it doesn't mean anything in OZian, but it does rhyme with pew-ee!"

Hilde groaned and Genie Girl stared daggers at the braided kid.

_Dear Lords of Heaven, I pray that my master will wish me to force feed that person large doses of Prozac!_

Heero was suddenly inspired.

"How many wishes will you grant me if I become your master?"

"Oh, an indefinite amount for as long as thou livest, Heero-Future-Master."

Heero glanced menacingly at Duo.

"No!  Don't hurt him!" Hilde yelled and threw her arms around her immature but endearing love interest.  Duo squeezed her like an orange, and not really because she was hot and not really because he loved her for her personality, but mostly because Heero was pretty damn scary.

"No," Heero sighed, and not really because it was the right thing to do and not really because he felt some compassion type emotion thingy, but mostly because that genie girl was pretty damn scary.

Deathscythe offered a wing to Wing, who promptly snorted amusedly and set a bloom ablaze.

So he chomped the bloom.

It tasted pretty good.

"Well, now that we're past the threaten Duo with death or worse stage, I think we have a mission to attend to," Duo said with vigor.

"Yes," Heero said, pleasantly surprised that Duo was for once thinking logically, "we should depart immediately."

"I could blink thee to thine destination in the bl- er, really fast," Genie Girl said.

The offer was tempting, but Heero was determined and would not waver.

"No thanks," he said coldly.

"B-but, 'tis the most logical way to fly…"

Heero twitched again.  What was up with these women?  Questioning his incredibly logical thought process!  Annoying.

But then he was inspired once more.

Genie girl could help him with his troublesome boss… but not until he knew more about her powers and their consequences.  

"We'll go by dragon.  You can ride in your bottle."

Genie girl beamed as a tear streaked down her cheek.  She thanked the Lords of Heaven that she was not going to be abandoned, and wondered if Heero would admit to being her master by sundown, or if it would take until sunrise.

Heero wondered if Duo would buy another threat of magical blasting.

"Oh, we never asked your name," Hilde said from where she and Duo were adjusting Deathscythe's shiny, studded saddle.

The genie gave her name, but it was multi-syllabled and rather hard to pronounce (and when she tried to spell it in their language, they found the orthography ridiculous), so the group settled for 'Relena'.

Duo clapped Relena on the shoulder.

"Oh, and jinx, babe.  You owe me an Emerald Mist."

***

Current Moral of the Story: Don't kick perverted colonels, even when they're down, _even when they've been total jerks and tried to steal your medallion._

Submit morals?  ^_^

Thanks to everyone who reviewed.  I have not extensively edited past chapters, but I take all that you say into account for future chapters.  Thanks for R&Rin'!  It's totally appreciated!

And yes, more Gundam pilots will appear.  I know what Quatre's role will be, not sure of the others.  I think Treize, Lady Une and probably Zechs will have a reason to show up.  And Wufei and Trowa need to join the group, too; I just need to let the story take us there.

As for romance, the level and intensity will increase as the journey continues.  ^_^  I won't end the story without some official relationships, so fear not!  And it shouldn't take until the end for all of them to develop to that point (I say all because I love Wufei and Sally – their dynamics are great, so I think that if I can work them in, it'd be fun).

But no more spoilers for now!!!

Hang in there for the next chapter – I have actually started it!

~Maeko*


	6. Tiptoe Thru the Poppies

Chapter 6

Last time on Rapunzel Maxwell –

Heero, the Delivery Boy from the FEDEX realm, where boys are really stupid, has found himself a love interest!  Too bad his immediate consciousness isn't actually interested…

Relena, AKA Genie Girl, is determined to make Heero accept his fate as her master! And eventually marry her, of course. Because it's, um, fated or something.  Hey, it could be.  (Place your bets now!)

Duo and Hilde have fortunately progressed a bit further, but as there is a severe lack of random broom closets in the field, not much beyond verbal flirting has transpired. 

Because yeah, that's why you're reading. 

Ahh, romance.  In a really large field of tall flowers.  Sighs

Coming up next – new characters!  Plus – ever wonder what FEDEX really stands for?  You'll find out in this most recent installment of… RAPUNZEL MAXWELL!

And now, back to the tale!

A few short hours later, after flying non-stop over the sea of blossoms, the group took another break.  Heero had mostly ignored the pair riding Deathscythe and they him until now.

"What is it this time?" he asked before hopping off Wing into the dusty clearing.  Well, he didn't hop, because delivery boys do not hop.  Hopping won't get them over picket fences and hydrangeas and pit bulls and other such obstacles.  No, they hurdle!  But they are apt to caper down an isolated forest path, humming "Someday My Prince Will Come" when the cargo happens to be a picnic basket with a cute little gingham cloth to cover the berry pie.

But you didn't hear it from me.

"She doesn't feel so great," Duo replied.  Hilde stood leading against D-scythe's side with her eyes closed, breathing deeply.

"I wish she had told us she gets airsick," Heero said.

"I don't," Hilde said.  "I think maybe I'm just hungry.  I haven't eaten since breakfast at around six thirty."

Heero glanced at his watch.  It was now quarter after one.  Her condition was understandable for one who did not possess Heero's FEDEX training.

"We brought food with us," he said, with his usual air of "…".  "Dig something out of the bag while I have a word with Duo."

Duo pointed to himself and raised an eyebrow.

"Yes.  It's about what we're going to do in the City.  We can reach it by midnight if we ride all night.  We should discuss our plans now so the dragons can feed and rest."

"Yah, gotcha.  Hey Hil, toss me a bag of crackers, will ya?"

"They've packaged him?" Heero muttered to Wing, who laughed tactlessly.

"Sure."  She reached into the knapsack and began rummaging around with one hand.  Her fingers brushed something smooth and plasticy.  "Hey – what's this?  _Cable boxes???_  Duo!?  Explain this!"

"I took 'em from the witch," he explained.  "I didn't really steal them."

Hilde glared in the way only a truly annoyed and miserable person can.

"Um, but she took my yoyo…"

"You're lucky I'm too hungry to care that you're a cat burglar.  Here," she said and threw a package of crackers at Duo.  Due to the force of her throw, half of them broke when he caught them.

_Well, she's not too hungry to chuck food at my head, _he thought._  The chick's got a good arm.  Good thing I didn't request that jar of  ca-vi-are stuff…_

Duo trotted over to Heero, who was eyeing the flowers in case they began to sway suspiciously.  Because you could never tell about flowers.  Poppies like these weren't so bad, but they were red.  Creepily red.  Red like roses.  Heero had a great dislike for roses, mostly because he associated them with… well… someone he liked even less than his psychopathic boss. 

"Yo, where's yo genie at?" Duo inquired.

"I estimate that we'll reach Emerald City around midnight," he began, ignoring Duo completely.  "We'll have to do the job before sunrise so you can escape and I can make it back to work.  The first thing-"

"Hey, I said, where's yo genie at?  You don't got no genie girl, I don't do no listenin'."

Heero, arms crossed, drummed his fingers on some very nicely toned biceps.  There were so many things wrong with this situation.  But fine.  Fine.  Better to play along and get things accomplished than argue with a brainless oddball, he told himself.  Besides, that Relena girl would probably go do harmless girl things with Hilde, like talk about things that didn't make sense and giggle.  No harm in that, right?  Right.

Wordlessly, he opened the bottle.  Relena greeted him with a half smile and a wink, before taking Duo's hint that the boys had things to discuss that were of too sensitive a nature to let an innocent's ears hear, and going to check on Hilde.

"Yo babe, sleep well?  Great!  Hey, me and Mr. Bike Shorts hafta plan a robbery, and he doesn't think so clear when he's being looked at by a pretty girl, so couldja like, peace out for a sec?"

"What?"

"Go hang with Hilde for a minute?"

"Ah."  She yawned and stretched.  "Certainly."

Heero blinked.  _Give me a sign that you're ALIVE_, the voice requested. 

_She has a nice navel_, he thought.

_We're getting somewhere._

"Yeah, I could do with an orange myself.  Don't wanna end up with scurvy and walking all like this," Duo said, holding his arms at odd angles and twitching as he shuffled in a circle.

"An orange?"

"Yeah, you muttered something about a nice navel."

As there were no rocks to crawl under, Heero decided to ignore this latest comment from the innocent looking liar.

"The first thing to do will be to find out where the witch is residing and how many entrances there are.  Oh, and we'll need to know her sleeping habits."

"Hey, I don't know her THAT well," Duo said, giving a "You naughty boy!" look to Heero.

Heero didn't waste time with rolling his eyes, although that remark certainly deserved it.

"I asked because I want to know if she'll be in her room asleep or out partying."

"Well, hmm...  She's kind of a polite partier.  Doesn't get drunk and line dance on the diving board, you know.  But her bigger bashes have been known to go on 'til early morning, so I think we'll just have to wait until we get there to see where she is."

"In that case, we'll need four plans."

"Oh, only four, eh?"

"Yes.  One for each possible situation."

"Ah.  But hang on; you sure you didn't miscount?  We need one if she is there, one if she's not."

"No.  We need one if she is there and asleep, one if she is there and awake, one if she is away and we know where she is, and another if her whereabouts are unknown."

"Oh, for like, lookouts and distractions and all that good stuff."

"Yes, 'all that good stuff.'"

Suddenly, a rustling sound came from the flowers.  Heero signaled for Duo, Hilde and Rel to follow him and hastily hide themselves in another section of the field.  Wing and D tiptoed thru the poppies and lay flat against the ground.

Heero, with his finely tuned, uber-creepy DB powers, was first to hear the voices.  Maybe someday, other people would begin to hear the voices, as well.  He couldn't be the only one…

"Hey, you hear that?" Duo asked.

Heero figured Duo was speaking of the voices a ways across the field.  The ones that were arguing.  Sometimes Heero preferred actual out loud arguing voices to the loud silent one(s) in his mind.  The one(s) that told him to do crazy things.  Like blink on occasion.

As previously stated, these voices from across the field were arguing, and rather feistily, too. 

"I don't know – perhaps we could start a little mom and pop general store in the country," a female voice said lightly.

"You're mocking me, woman," said a frustrated male.

They emerged from the giant flower field and paused.

"I do believe that we will find her," the woman said sincerely.

"I'm not so sure.  Has it… has it ever crossed your mind that perhaps I am not meant to find her?" he asked quietly.

"Hm.  Do you mean, has it ever crossed my mind that you were an unfit ruler and the overtaking of our kingdom was not due to the incredibly large number of OZ forces who for the most part, fought dishonorably?  That it was in fact due to your incompetence and, oh… what was it again… gosh, the word just slipped my mind… oh yes, your _weakness_?"

Brief silence.

"No, that _never_ crossed my mind," she continued.  "But for some reason, this man with a ponytail keeps saying that when he thinks no one is listening.  I don't believe him, though, and I've a mind to smack him one if he keeps on blathering that way."

"I thought you were a heavier sleeper," said the man sheepishly.

"Oh.  Well, truthfully… you keep me awake."

"What?!"

"Yes, with your ranting…" the woman said cautiously.

"My thoughts were not meant for your ears, woman!"

"Then quit throwing them around for all of nature to hear!"

"I do not carelessly throw my thoughts around.  You – you always seem so tired when we set up camp at night.  You close your eyes, and breathe slowly, and give every sign of actually being unconscious.  How am I to know that it is all ruse?"

"It is not a ruse!  It's not my fault that I am woken up by loud cries in the night, startled, thinking it could be something capable of eating us… but no, it's only you.  Only Wufei, feeling unworthy, yelling at the grass for not growing straight enough or someth-"

"That is ENOUGH!"

"And _then_, I have to worry about YOU!"

"What?!"

"Let me put it this way – it's not easy being your only 'loyal subject.'"

"Oh, really?"

"Well, you're just a bit demanding."

"Fine.  Then leave."

Again, brief silence.

"I can't."

"Why the hell not?  I would have left me ages ago!"

"That's exactly why I can't leave.  You'll become discouraged, and then you'll give up seeking Nataku, and then where will our kingdom be?"

"No worse off than it is now."

"It currently does not exist."

"Well, that would be the point," he grumbled.

A longer silence ensued, in which the man unclenched his fists, flexed his muscles just slightly and folded his arms.  The woman, to whom this was apparently an habitual occurrence, took the opportunity to collect her thoughts.

"Tell me you do not care that OZ has destroyed your country and enslaved your people, and I will leave," she said, suppressing quite a bit of emotion in order to remain collected.

The man looked her square in the eye and after a moment of inner turmoil said,

"You know I cannot say that."

"Then I believe we are agreed," she said.  He did not answer immediately.  Instead, they bored holes into one another's heads with their intense stares.  The man, or more correctly, the king, looked away after a moment.

"Dammit, you always win those."

She shrugged and tossed half her roped hair over a shoulder.

"I got skills."

The man gave her an offensive look, but then snorted in amusement.

"You sound so stupid when you talk like that."

"Oh, don't lie to yourself.  You'd miss it if I were gone."

"I would not go that far, woman.  If I wanted to hear someone speaking like a fool, I would turn on MTV."

"Now that's a strange thing, you know?  One doesn't seem to find many televisions while on a quest…"

"That is SO true!" Duo exclaimed.   The man and woman spun in his direction and struck fighting poses.  Hilde buried her face in her hand and tried to sink into the ground.  Heero pulled out his gun and Relena grimaced – she really wished she hadn't just seen that.

"Hey, that's so cool!  Do y'all know Kung Fu?" Duo asked as he emerged from behind the curtain of flowers.

"Who are you and how long have you been there?"

"My my!  He IS demanding," Duo chuckled.

"Answer or die!"

"Uh, I'll take choice A," he said.  "I'm Duo Maxwell, known around these parts as the Great Rapunzel!  But don't take that too seriously, 'cause I don't actually do much killing myself.  Actually," he added, scritch-scratching the back of his head, "none so far.  How about you?"

"Hey, uh, I'm a doctor and I would recommend not doing that," the woman said.

"We know," the assembled company, minus Duo and the two new additions, groaned.

"Not doing what, killing?" Duo asked.  He was ignored.  "Well, anyway, we're just a group o' travelers, looking for a place to spend the night," he continued casually.  "How about you guys?"

"That is none of your business, even though you probably know it all anyway from eavesdropping!" The man said sharply.  "That was uncalled for, and you're pathetic for not using better judgement!"

"_Injustice_," the woman coughed.

"What was that, woman?"

"Hey, wait a minute.  Why do you keep calling her 'woman'?" Hilde, having reluctantly inched her way out of the blossoms to keep an eye on her almost-but-not-quite-boyfriend, asked.

"Why not?" the man replied snottily.

"It's because he can't pronounce my name," the woman explained.

"That is a lie!  And you know it!" he replied indignantly, not happy that she found it amusing to tease him in front of these travelers. 

"Then say it," Hilde and the woman said in sync.

"Jinx!" yelled the woman a split second before Hilde.

"Aw, man!"  Hilde sighed.

"I do not have to waste my time with such foolishness.  I am on a quest.  And I do not care to associate myself with fools such as you!  Come, woman."  He stalked over to the edge of the flowers, but stopped before entering, since he realized she was not following him.  He turned and raised an eyebrow.

"Hey."

"Hm?" she said, as if awakening from a daze.  "Oh, I'm sorry, were you saying something?"

His face read, "You know darn well I was."

"Oh, I did not know you were addressing _me_," she said pseudo-innocently.  Then she waited.

"Well?" he prompted.

"Well what?"

"WOMAN!"

"There he goes again," Duo said, adding a "tsk tsk" that seemed to annoy the man to no end.

"I have it so good," Hilde said, sliding an arm around his waist.

"You ain't the only one, baby," he replied, pulling her close.

"Ooh!" she giggled.

"Oh, they are so cute, are they not?" Relena sighed.

"They are not," Heero replied, giving the couple a look of annoyance, which they could not see for the flowers.

"I am very sorry, but thou art not much fun," Relena said.

"I'm not supposed to be fun."

"I see.  Well, it is too bad.  As for me, I am going to go and acquaint myself with these other travelers."

In just under .1 seconds, Heero had her arm in a death grip.  His heart rate sped up moderately, but he chose to ignore it.

"Don't," he commanded simply.

"Must I remind thou that thou art not in a position to be making requests of-"

"I'll kill you."

"Pardon me?"  She looked down and found herself standing in front of the scary end of his gun.

"You're in my line of fire," he explained.  He had been aiming for the bickering couple in case they tried to sabotage his mission.

"Oh.  Ha ha, I see.  Well, excuse me," she said, and took the long way around the crouched automaton. 

Back in the field…

"So, you know he basically admitted to watching you while you sleep?" Duo whispered to the lady.

"Shh," she said with a wink and her pointer finger over her mouth.

"Hello," said Relena.

"Oh right, we all need to finish introducing ourselves," Duo said happily. 

"No.  No.  Go away," the king said.  He was growing weary of being embarrassed in front of random odd commoners.

"Sorry, but this was our field first.  We just cleared out to make room for y'all."

"Well I would be on my way, if it weren't for… that… S-Ss…"

Duo, Hilde and Rel leaned closer in anticipation.

"That…"  He stopped and shook his head.  He looked pleadingly, perhaps even contritely, at the woman. 

She cocked her head to the side a bit.  Not goadingly.  Just to let him know that all that was required was one little move on his part.  He swallowed and calmed his pulse.

"Sally.  Come with me."

She smiled softly.

"That's all I want to do."

Hilde bit her bottom lip.

"That's so sweet," she whispered to Duo. 

"No, that's pretty sad.  Trust me, I can do better."  Having grown up listening to soap operas, Duo had learned a bit.  Such as, what not to say.  As long as he kept away from the soapiness, he couldn't go wrong, right?

"Hey, I'm not complaining!" Hilde said with a bit of drama in her voice.

Duo didn't know what to say.  So he hugged her tight. 

That worked pretty well.

Sally now stood only a few feet from the man and they seemed about ready to be on their way.

But Relena had a bit of a plan.  She made her way over to the emperor.  No one noticed, because they were all paying attention to Duo, who called out dramatically to the deposed Chinese dude,

"Wait, we don't even know your name!!!"

Now feeling a little better about himself, tho' strangely worse for having been… what?  Harsh?  Hm.  Well, the man felt at peace enough to behave like a decent human being.

"I am Emperor Chang Wufei of China.  I seek to restore my kingdom."

"Wow, emperor.  And I thought he was only a king," Duo said.  Hilde patted him on the head.

"Your Majesty," Relena said, kneeling before him.  "I am but a humble genie, but I would like to offer me services to thee, to assist thee in any way possible in the restoration of your kingdom."

"Wow," Sally said.  "Good offer."

"A genie…" the emperor thought aloud.

"What?" Heero asked no one.

"A genie could serve me well.  But I am not certain that I would make a very good master."

"As it happens, I am currently without a master.  I can think of none better than one so noble as thee."

"Hm."  Emperor Chang rubbed his chin.  He liked the sound of that.  Maybe Sally was right and he wasn't such a bad guy.  He was still weak as hell, tho', but then, perhaps for that reason he needed this genie.  And her service would not inconvenience her because, after all, she was a genie and sought a master.

"Wait.  Question," said the Heero.

"Who are you?" asked Wufei.

"Yuy, Heero.  FEDEX.  Rank: Delivery.  Number 143769.  My question is for the genie."

"Yes?" she said aloofly.

"If you become his genie, does that mean I don't have to become your master?"

"That is true."

"And you would go with him, and leave our party?"

"Of course."

Heero should have felt relief.  More than that, he should have been ecstatic.  But he was not.

_Damn you.  DAMN YOU!  Why can't I be more in control of myself?_

_You're too uptight.  You need to let go_, said the voice.

_NO!_

_Okay look, here's the deal – you can be in control once you start making some good decisions.  And you can't do that until you recognize what's good for you.  Until then, I rule the roost.  That's the deal._

_Who _are_ you?_

_The formless authority figure that you need to tell you what to do, you order taking zombie.  You start making better decisions, I get quieter._

_What do you want me to do?_

_You'll see._

"All right, genie.  From this moment on, you are mine," Wufei was saying.

_What?_ Heero thought.  This seemed wrong… but oh well.  Good riddance.

"Thank you, master."

"Oh no, now he's got someone to call him master."  Sally threw her arms up in the air.  "Now I'll never hear the end of it."

"What are you implying, womannnuh, I uh, Sally?"

"Well, that wasn't too bad."

"Complain, complain, complain…"

"Is there anything thou wishest of me?" Relena interjected.

"Uh, yes.  Carry our gear," Wufei ordered superciliously.

"Easily done."

"Wait," said Heero.  Out loud.  Everyone turned to stare at him.

"If you're going to take her off my hands, shouldn't I be compensated?  After all, I was the one who discovered her.  I freed her from her bottle."

"Then why aren't you her master?" asked Wufei.

"I was simply providing a transportation until she found a new master."

"Oh, well, I suppose I should give you something."

But Heero didn't want the sack of gold the emperor tossed his way.  What he wanted was for that neurotic Chang fellow to stop ordering around his genie.

"And now, genie, I believe that is all.  You are mine.  Let us move forward."

Something in Heero stirred and he knew he had to keep the genie with him.  Maybe it was his DB sense kicking in, warning him that he would encounter something terrible that even his training hadn't prepared him for.  Maybe it was that fate thing that starry eyed people liked to daydream about, telling him that for whatever reason, she was destined to go with his troupe.

Maybe.

But he called out her name because he knew that once she was gone he would miss her.

_Darn stupid emotions, not making any sense.  I don't even know this genie person, she's just some annoying…_

She turned slightly.

"Yes?"

He could not speak to her.  His mouth went dry. 

He tossed the bag of gold at the emperor's feet.

"I don't want compensation.  I want my genie back."

"It was a fair deal, and it is done," Wufei began.

"I said I want my genie back."

They stared.  Duo and Hilde stepped away from the sparks.

It didn't seem that either side would back down.

"I am her rightful master," Heero said with more force than that champion hot dog eater guy shoves the dogs down his throat with.

"Very well."  In one suave move, the emperor rolled the coin bag onto his foot, flicked it high and caught it.

Relena smiled.

"Allow me to leave you something."  She folded her arms, blinked her eyes, and a horse-drawn cart appeared.

"Thank you!" Sally said.

"Not bad," said Wufei.

They said their goodbyes and were on their way.

Note the rhyme

"Oh wait, I have a question!" Duo called after them.

"What?" asked Emperor Chang in his, "Hurry it up, you annoying person" voice.

"If China has been taken over by OZ, then what do you call Chinese food now?"

"Not worth it," Sally whispered.  The two rode off into the flowers to continue their quest for Nataku.

"Hey!" Duo called desperately.

"I wouldn't worry about it," Hilde said.

"But if it's not China, it can't be _Chinese_ food… it's like, East Asian OZian… and see, that does NOT sound appetizing.  Man.  It's all gonna be OZian!  I declare, that for the diversity of food courts everywhere, we should help those people!"

"But Duo, you've already got a mission."

"Well I know, but-"

"Which you have neglected to inform me about."

Duo shrugged and tried to look his cutest and most oblivious.  But Hilde had powers as well.  She looked into his eyes and leaned in.

"Duo… won't you please tell me what your mission is?"

"Uh…"  Her eyes were big… and violet… and… and shiny…

Duo suspected that she was saying something, but couldn't really be sure.

There was only one thing to do.

Kiss her.

He tried to bring the vast three inches between their lips down to an acceptable zero, but at the last sixteenth of an inch, she turned away.

"You haven't told me about your mission yet," said Hilde, trying not to sound as breathless as she felt.

Duo let his forehead fall against her shoulder.  Then he picked it up and let it fall again.

Why couldn't real life romance be simple???

Relena faced her new master.  Her new, silent as ever, master.

"So," she ventured.  "Thou art now my master."

"Yes." 

"Is there anything that thou wishest of me, Master?"

"D-don't call me that."

"Do not call thou what, Master?"

"That.  Master.  It-it doesn't work for me."

"Oh." 

She was looking at him, but he was looking everywhere else but at her.  Something about it made her nervous. 

"Then, uh, what would thou like me to call thee?"

"Heero will do."

"Heero."  She found her gaze falling to the grass.  She had thought she'd be so happy to be his genie officially [and she was, magnificently happy!], but something about the arrangement had made things awkward.  To say the least.

Neither spoke.  Nor did they even glance at one another until they were sure the other was looking at a flower or something and then each stole a peek at the person s/he was now tied to – by chance, at the same time.

Heero frowned.

Relena blushed.

But neither looked away.

And the seconds ticked by, slowly, as they do when one gazes at someone particularly special.  But master and genie were separated by many things, not to mention seven feet of field.

"We should get going," Heero said, forcing the words thru his esophagus. 

"Yes, Heero."  She was going to enjoy every chance she got to address him by name.

"We've lost time."

"Quite a bit of it."

They remounted silently, paying more attention to their own basic motor skills than Hilde and Duo's playful banter, Wing's anxious snorts or even each other.  Heero was relieved when Relena climbed up behind him.  It saved him the stress of having to invite her, and he would have had to, since making her ride in the bottle now somehow seemed too uncouth.  He scooted forward, leaving the saddle for her and managed not to do or say anything stupid.  Relena wrapped her arms comfortably around his waist and settled in for the flight.  Heero found that he was not bothered by this at all, and could even concentrate on flying.  Granted he couldn't concentrate on much else, but he'd already made all the plans, so there really was nothing left to do but enjoy the flight.

Relena hoped Heero wouldn't remember that genies can fly.

Okay, so the FEDEX acronym will be revealed in a later chapter.  Oops.  So much for my planning. 


End file.
